Help

Creating charts from data
F
ILEMAKER PRO HELP 415
Changing a layout part
Charting tips, tricks, and troubleshooting
Chart doesn’t look as expected
• Verify that data is sorted in the current layout and unwanted records are omitted from the
found set before creating a chart.
• Are you comparing individual data points (the price of each product in a category) or
summarized data points (the sum of all products in a category)?
• Individual data points must be numeric so they can be plotted directly on the chart.
• Summarized data points can be text or number field type. You can count data in a text
field and you can perform a variety of mathematical operations on number data (sum,
average, and so on).
• If your chart displays too few data points when data is sorted, in the Chart inspector, click
Data Source and select Individual record data.
• When you create a quick chart, FileMaker Pro includes axis labels based on the field you
selected and the current state of the file. When FileMaker
Pro can’t determine appropriate
labels, it leaves labels blank. For example, if you chart individual data points such as soccer
scores, FileMaker
Pro labels the appropriate axis Scores. However, the labels on the
opposite axis are blank if FileMaker
Pro can’t determine you want to plot by player first
names, last names, the team name, or the game date. If axis labels are missing, you can
add them in the Chart inspector.
• If summary data looks unexpected, check the summary type FileMaker Pro applied. You
can use the Summary setting in the Chart inspector to verify and the change the summary
type.
• A chart can display up to 2048 data points. If your data set contains more than 2048
records, FileMaker
Pro charts a subset of the available data representing a uniform spread
of the larger data set.
• Charts created in Layout mode appear differently in the Chart Setup dialog box preview
than in Browse mode depending on the layout part in which they are placed. See
Placing
your chart in the appropriate layout part.
Troubleshooting calculated titles and data series
• When you use a calculation to specify a title in a chart created in Layout mode, the result is
based on the layout part in which the chart is located. See
Placing your chart in the
appropriate layout part.
• A calculated x-axis data series must return a result:
• as text in a column, stacked column, positive/negative, pie (category label), line, or area
chart
• as number in a bar, stacked bar, scatter, or bubble chart
• When you chart data in a found set or in related records, a calculated y-axis data series
must return a result:
• as number in a column, stacked column, positive/negative, pie (slice data), line, area,
scatter, or bubble chart
• as text in a bar or stacked bar